Government regulations have established requirements for the destruction of hazardous waste fluids. For example, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of the United States requires that in the burning of principle organic hazardous constituents (POHC's) a destruction and removal efficiency (DR&E) of at least 99.99% must be achieved for all POHC's except polychlorinated biphenols (commonly referred to as PCB's). PCB's are required to have a DR&E of at least 99.9999%. Heretofore, no one has been able to achieve destruction of POHC's and especially PCB's in the temperature, time, turbulence environment present in a steam generator.
Heretofore, POHC's have been destroyed by Thermal Incineration followed by a typical waste heat recovery system for steam generation. The problem is that incinerators cannot operate at flame temperature because of refractory limitations. A cooling media such as air, steam, or water is required to lower flue gas temperatures to maintain the refractory's structural integrity. This cooling media then adds mass to the flue gas and exits with the flue gas from the waste heat recovery at an elevated temperature. This causes a loss of sensible heat and in the case of water, a loss of latent heat in addition to a sensible heat loss.